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The Hoff family is celebrating 50 years of involvement in the Fort Worth Stock Show this year. The family from Windthorst has won more than 500 ribbons and trophies. (Published Tuesday, Jan 22, 2013)

The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo has been going strong for 117 years. And it's not hard to find the people who keep coming back, year after year.

Adam Hoff, of Windthorst, is no stranger to the Stock Show and its many show rings.

"I guess since I was 3, so this would be 14th or 15th (show)," he said. "Actually showing, showing, would be 10."

A decade of showing dairy cows is nothing to sneeze at, but it pales in comparison to the rest of the Hoff family.

"We've done this all our life," said Tom Hoff, his uncle. "I'm fixing to turn 51 and, ever since I was big enough to walk, they've been coming here, that I can remember."

Family matriarch Joanne Hoff can remember 50 of them -- all in a row with one exception.

"I was in the hospital and I told them not to come, because they wasn't going to win without me being there," she said. "But my son won grand champion and his calf, it was a cow it went on to be All-American. The one year, yes, so I know they can do it without me, but I still come every year."

The family held a celebration on Monday night, the last night before most of the family left the show for the year.

"And it was a surprise, all six of my boys were here," Joanne Hoff said.

They remembered the victories and recalled the weather of shows past.

"Probably two or three times when the water froze here in the barn," Joanne Hoff said. "They had to call a welder in to thaw the water pipes."

But even after five decades and more than 500 family ribbons and trophies, every show is different, she said.

"It doesn't make a difference if you're here one time or two times," she said. "You learn something every year that you come."

Her grandchildren take the knowledge to heart.

"Yeah, grandma's the ring leader," Adam Hoff said.

Joanne Hoff said this will be her last Stock Show but admitted to already thinking about next year's barn display.